Why does ensuring that a customer never has to call back to resolve an issue matter so much?

In the world of Service Desk, First Contact Resolution (FCR)is properly addressing the customer’s need the first time they call, eliminating his or her need to follow up with a second call. Simply stated, your Service Desk needs to make sure that you speak with your customers about an issue, and provide great service, once and only once.

The measure of how often customer’s issues are being resolved on first contact is your First Contact Resolution (FCR) rate. It is one of the most powerful Service Desk metrics, in that it is directly correlated to your strategic business goals. With businesses being differentiated today on the basis on the strength of their customer focus, FCR provides powerful insight into where the customer stands in your organization’s scheme of things.

Let us look some of the traditional measures that Service Desks have employed over the years. The usual suspects are service levels, speed of answer, talk time, calls handled, abandon rates, occupancy rates, call monitoring scores, and so forth. However, on closer inspection, the astute Service Desk manager will realize that none of them are as closely linked to Customer Satisfaction as FCR is.

While most traditional Service Desk measures are a yardstick for the means employed, FCR is one those measures that squarely addresses business outcomes. For example, if your agents are closing calls well within your standard three minutes, but your customers keep calling back for answers to unresolved questions, then clearly something is wrong.

But as you embark on the study of FCR and how its insight can positively impact your business, you will realize that it goes beyond just measuring a number and actually identifies gaps in your business processes that you can streamline to achieve better overall results.

Gavin Cooper
Head of Global Marketing
GSS Infotech
Reach me at:
gavin.cooper@gssinfotech.com
Phone: + 1 518-724 3138